The Kill Fee Read online

  Nogovski opened his hands placatingly and replied in English: “Yes, I know it was my job to check them. But mistakes are sometimes made. As soon as I find out who it is, they will be dealt with.”

  This seemed to satisfy Safin, who turned back to Poppy and said: “Well, it’s no use crying over spilt milk, as you English say, but the thing is, I cannot let Miss Marconi leave yet. I am still waiting for her friend, the Lane boy, to bring something to me.”

  He paused, feigning affectation, and said in a theatrical voice: “The dastardly scoundrel has stolen our egg!”

  Nogovski laughed along with him. Poppy simply sighed.

  Then Nogovski said: “Are you sure this is the best way to get it, Vasili? Perhaps Miss Denby here can talk some sense into Lane. Threatening to hurt Miss Marconi might not be the best approach…”

  Safin let off a tirade of Russian which, although Poppy didn’t understand the detail, seemed to be directed at Nogovski. Whatever camaraderie there had been between the men was now gone. Could Nogovski have been telling her the truth?

  Before she could decide one way or the other Nogovski grabbed her by the arm and pulled her up. “Then perhaps it is time Miss Denby left. Don’t worry, Vasili, I shall ensure she does not follow through with her threat.”

  Safin curled back his upper lip, revealing tobacco-stained teeth. “Oh, I do not think so, Andrei. You see, I know you are bluffing. I too have – how did you put it? – sources and snitches. And my inside man at The Globe has told me exactly what’s going to be in tomorrow’s newspaper – an article by Ike Garfield – and none of what you say is in it. So I wonder, my dear Andrei, what it is you are playing at. His hand reached out to the coat and hat stand, and he pulled out a cane. It looked very much like the one Adam carried. Nogovski seemed to be thinking the same thing, because he pushed Poppy behind him and raised his own cane in defence.

  “Let the girl go, Vasili; enough blood has been shed.”

  In answer, Safin unsheathed his rapier and lunged at Nogovski. Poppy waited for Nogovski to unsheathe his own, but nothing happened. He simply countered the older man’s blows with the wood of his cane.

  So he is telling the truth! Poppy’s heart lurched as she watched while the two men thrust and parried. Without a sword, though, Nogovski was at a disadvantage. She had to do something… She skirted the room looking this way and that, trying to find a weapon or something to use. She saw the coat and hat stand. Without giving it too much thought she pushed it over onto the fencing men in an avalanche of outdoor attire. Both men thrashed to break free, but Nogovski, nearest the door, emerged first. Poppy grabbed his hand and pulled him up. Together they ran out of the room.

  In the basement, the snoozing man was knocked into a deeper state of sleep. Adam found a key in his pocket and opened the door. And there, huddled in a corner at the back of a pantry, was a tear-stained Delilah.

  Nogovski and Poppy ran through the embassy, heading for the kitchen. Nogovski pushed Poppy towards the back door. “Run. There’s a back gate. Go through the park. Get to the palace.”

  “No. I’ve got to get Delilah!”

  “I’ll get Delilah,” said Nogovski.

  “Actually, no one need get Delilah. I’m right here.”

  Poppy and Nogovski turned to see Delilah, Adam and Daniel coming up the basement stairs. “Poppy!” exclaimed Daniel.

  “No time for reunions now,” declared Nogovski and pushed them all towards the kitchen door.

  Nogovski led them through the grounds to the back gate. They were challenged by a guard, whom he swiftly and silently dispatched. “Put away the gun, Rokeby. They’ll hear it,” Nogovski ordered. Daniel stared at him for a moment, then complied. The photographer grabbed Poppy’s hand and they ran as fast as they could into Kensington Palace Gardens.

  A few moments later, the sound of Russian voices behind them told Poppy they were being pursued. Against orders, Daniel withdrew his revolver, but did not discharge it. Poppy trusted that he would only use it as a last resort. Please God, don’t let it come to that.

  They ran full pelt towards the gates of Kensington Palace – the residence of the Queen Mother and the Household Cavalry that protected her. Poppy’s chest burned with every breath, but she daren’t slow down. Daniel urged her on. And then, as they broke through the treeline, the lights of the palace illuminated their path. The guards at the gate raised their weapons and challenged them with a “who goes there?”. The five of them slowed to a breathless halt. Poppy whipped her head round to see what the Russians would do.

  Mercifully, the answer was nothing. The shadows of their pursuers retreated back into the park and Poppy fell to her knees.

  CHAPTER 37

  The captain of the palace guard interrogated them for over an hour. Then they were searched. Delilah gasped when the purple lacquer diamond-studded egg was removed from its oilcloth and placed on the table of the guardhouse.

  “So you see, Captain,” said Nogovski, “we are not lying. We have come to return the egg to its rightful owner: Empress Maria Federovna, who is a house guest, I believe, of your own Queen Alexandra.”

  The guard looked down his nose at Nogovski and said: “Wait here.” He muttered an instruction to the other guards to the effect of “shoot the first one who moves” and then went off to speak to someone higher up in the household.

  Daniel caught Poppy’s eye. She smiled at him, relieved that he was there and safe. But he didn’t return her smile. He wore the same worried frown he had in the motor when he took her to task for risking her safety with Rollo. Poppy sighed inwardly. Oh spiffing, we’ve still got this to sort. But now was not the time for a lovers’ squabble and thankfully Daniel seemed to think the same.

  Delilah, surrounded by handsome men, appeared to have recovered from her ordeal and was anxious to fill in as many gaps as she could.

  “So exactly how did you get the egg, Adam?” she asked.

  Adam cleared his throat and was about to answer when Nogovski chipped in: “He was keeping it safe for me, weren’t you, Lane?”

  “Ah yes, I was,” answered Adam.

  Poppy gave Nogovski a curious look. Why was he trying to protect Adam in all this?

  Daniel seemed to be wondering the same thing. “And how, pray tell, did you get your hands on it, Comrade Nogovski?” he asked, not trying to hide the scorn in his voice.

  “That does not matter. All that does is that a priceless artefact has been recovered.”

  Delilah arched her eyebrows. “Oh Comrade Nogovski, you don’t expect us to believe that, do you? And I do wish you’d stop treating me like a silly little girl who has just got herself kidnapped – well, I did get myself kidnapped, but that wasn’t my fault, it’s –”

  “What Delilah is saying, I think,” chipped in Poppy, “is that we’ve had enough of all these secrets, and that it’s time the truth was out.”

  “Ah, but some truths are best unspoken.” They all turned around to look at the door. Wearing a dressing gown and slippers, Prince Felix Yusopov stood with the Captain of the Household Cavalry.

  “As the empress’s aide, I thought it best to fetch the prince,” the captain explained.

  “Thank you,” said Felix. “I think I can take it from here, Captain. Would you mind asking your men to leave? They can of course stand outside the door, but there are a few things I need to ask these people on behalf of the empress and I would prefer it to be in private.”

  “Well, I don’t know…” answered the captain.

  “Perhaps we can wake the Queen Mother then, and ask her permission?”

  As it was well after one in the morning, Poppy didn’t think the Queen Mother would take too well to being awakened. The captain obviously came to the same conclusion.

  “All right, but no one is to leave this room without my permission.”

  Prince Felix Yusopov gave a mock salute and the captain withdrew his men.

  Felix shut the door behind them and leaned on it, his arms crossed. “Well, well
, what do we have here?” He looked at each of them in turn, starting with Nogovski. “A spy – sorry, a ‘security consultant’ …”

  “That’s rich coming from a murderer – sorry, ‘assassin’…” retorted Nogovski.

  Felix tutted in mock offence and continued his round of the room. “A journalist, a photographer, an actress and a…” he paused, looking Adam up and down, “a jewel thief.”

  Poppy flashed a quick look at Delilah, expecting her to be shocked, but she wasn’t. She’d no doubt by now figured out that Adam was not just a victim in all of this. As had Daniel, obviously.

  “I believe Valetta is lovely this time of year,” continued the prince. “Have you had any telegrams from there lately?”

  “My father should send one today to say he’s docked,” replied Delilah.

  Felix smiled indulgently. “Not you, little kitten, your boyfriend.”

  “Senor Swart?” asked Adam.

  “At your service.” Felix took a mock bow and then pulled up a chair, shimmying himself between Delilah and Adam. He turned to the young actress. “Your boyfriend here has been leading a double life, you know? Stealing jewels for his employer.”

  “Are you his employer?” asked Poppy, trying to figure out exactly how the assassin of Rasputin could be connected to it all. Selena had suggested before she died that Felix and Irina Yusopov were the ones behind it; had she been right?

  “No, I am not,” answered Felix. “But I represent that person and have been commissioning Mr Lane since 1912.”

  “The necklace in Paris?”

  “Indeed, Miss Denby, indeed. You have unearthed far more in this investigation than I ever thought you would.”

  Nogovski said something to Felix in Russian. They conversed for a few moments before Adam interjected in the same language. Both the Russians looked surprised; they had forgotten Adam spoke their language.

  Adam turned to the other English people at the table. “Well, now that everything is out in the open, I’ll tell you what happened. But first I would like to know from Nogovski why he just told Prince Felix that there was no way of tracing the necklace back to the empress.”

  Poppy turned to Nogovski and demanded: “Well, answer the man! And at the same time you’d better tell me why you burned the picture of the necklace in Delilah’s apartment.”

  Nogovski looked at Felix and then at Poppy. He splayed his hands on the table. “Well, in the interest of full disclosure, I shall tell you that I was trying to protect the empress from all of this.”

  “Why on earth would you do that?” asked Felix. “You hate the royals.”

  Nogovski nodded. “I do, but my mother did not. And it was her wish that I stop the truth coming out that Maria Federovna had been behind the jewel thefts all along. Isn’t that correct, Yusopov?”

  Felix leaned back in his chair and took a gold cigarette case from his pocket. He offered them round. Both Adam and Delilah took one; Daniel, Poppy and Nogovski declined. “Yes, that is correct. But it is not technically theft. My aunt – the empress – simply wanted to retrieve what belonged to our family in the first place. She saw the way Russia was heading and how her foolish daughter-in-law’s dalliance with the mad monk was enraging the people. Unlike the tsar and tsarina, she was not the least surprised when the revolution came. Saddened, but not surprised. So she had been gathering a fortune to support us all if we ever needed to go into exile. But she did not want it to be known, so she came up with this elaborate scheme of pretending they were all stolen, when actually she was simply retrieving presents that had only ever been loaned in the first place. She’s always had a touch for the theatrical, my aunt, and I was only too pleased to help her.”

  “What’s all this got to do with the key and the map and the top-secret information?” asked Daniel.

  Felix raised his eyebrows in mock despair. “An unfortunate by-product of Nogovski’s mother not being able to keep her mouth shut about family secrets – once again.”

  That’s the second time his mother’s been mentioned, thought Poppy. Who on earth… A thought struck the young journalist like a slap in the face. She scrabbled through the contents of bags and pockets that the guards had taken from them and left in the middle of the table. As her friends looked curiously on, she pulled out the photograph of the baby. She slapped it on the table in front of Nogovski. Circa 1885, said Miss King, and Nogovski is… “That’s you, isn’t it? And Selena is – was – your mother.”

  Delilah gasped. Felix chuckled.

  “Your secret’s out now, Andrei. A Red commie with blue blood.”

  Nogovski glared at him and turned to Poppy, his face inscrutable. “Yes, she was my mother. She had me secretly when she was a teenager. Her aunt – the empress – was the only one who knew, and helped her hide it. At least I thought she was the only one…” he said, tossing a sideways glance at Felix.

  “The empress arranged for me to be raised by a decent middle-class family who never knew who I really was. I didn’t either until years later when Selena came to see me and told me, tearfully, that she was really my mother. She tried to manage my career, arranging for me first to be her bodyguard and then to get a plum position in the tsar’s secret police. But it went against everything I believed in. And eventually… eventually… I broke free.”

  “But you could not stop protecting her,” said Felix.

  “No, I could not,” agreed Nogovski. “She was a silly woman, but she was my mother. It was I who saved her when she was going to be killed at Yekaterinburg with the rest of the Romanovs…”

  Yekaterin-what? Poppy flipped over the baby photograph to reveal the image of Anya Andreiovich and Ruth Broadwood.

  Adam gasped. “Where did you get that photograph?”

  “Do you recognize them?” asked Poppy.

  Adam nodded and told them about the job in Moscow and the massacred family. Delilah’s hand went to her mouth. “Oh darling! How terrible for you! How terrible for them! But you say the child got away?”

  “I think so,” said Adam. “I hoped so. But when I saw that man again at the exhibition and then again in the alley, I feared for the worst.”

  “What did this man look like?” asked Poppy, although she thought she already knew.

  “He was in his mid-50s, had a goatee and carried a cane, just like mine. He must have had it made at the same specialist shop in Moscow that I did.”

  Nogovski and Poppy caught each other’s eye over the table. Daniel noticed and frowned.

  “You didn’t get to meet the man who called you to the embassy this evening, did you?” asked Poppy.

  “No,” said Adam, drawing on his cigarette. He exhaled slowly and then said: “We didn’t announce ourselves when we arrived, did we, Rokeby?” This elicited the slightest twitch of the mouth from Daniel. Despite himself, he’s enjoying this, thought Poppy.

  “Well,” said Poppy, “I think the man you saw in Moscow and the man you saw at the exhibition was the same man who killed Selena and Watts. And that man is –”

  “Vasili Safin,” finished Felix. “Thank you, Miss Denby; that makes sense. I’ve been trying to figure out why my silly cousin tried to kill him at the exhibition.”

  “She what?” spluttered Poppy.

  Felix ignored her and turned to Nogovski. “Am I correct in saying that Safin was there at the execution of Nicky and Alix and the children?”

  Nogovski put his fingers to his temples and started rubbing. “You are,” he said. “I tried to stop them, but they wouldn’t listen. They killed them all. And if it hadn’t been for my intervention, they would have killed Selena and –” he picked up the photograph of Anya and Ruth “– these two as well.” He rubbed his thumb over Anya’s face. “They had the misfortune of arriving on the very same day as the execution. But I intercepted them and hid them, along with my mother. Everyone else was too busy trying to get rid of the Romanov bodies to notice.”

  “Who is the child?” asked Daniel.

  “It’s –” Poppy h
ad been about to answer that it was Ivan’s daughter, but she realized that secret was not yet out. And she needed to speak to Rollo about it before she revealed it. So instead she said, “It’s the child of a Russian aristocrat. But the more important question is: who is the woman with her? The answer is Ruth Broadwood, a British spy, and the person believed to be carrying the key to this Fabergé egg.”

  Everyone at the table – apart from Nogovski – looked at her in surprise and then at the jewelled egg. “But before we get to that, can we just pick up on something you said, Prince Felix?”

  “Of course, Miss Denby. I’m glad to say you are a much better investigator than you are a dancer.” He winked at her. Daniel looked as if he were about to deck him.

  Poppy put a restraining hand on the photographer’s arm and asked Felix: “What did you mean about Selena trying to kill Safin at the exhibition? Is that why she fired the gun? Did it have nothing to do with the theft after all?”

  Felix laughed. “Ironically not. Irina, my wife, had smuggled in the weapon with the intention of letting off a round or two in the air to distract everyone while Lane stole the egg.”

  “Thanks for warning me,” muttered Adam.

  “But Selena somehow got her hands on it, and when she saw Safin there, she saw red, muttering something about him killing her darlings. At the time it didn’t make sense, but now Nogovski’s told us that Safin was at the execution…”

  “But – but – how did she get the gun out?” asked Daniel. “We were all searched.”

  “Not everyone,” said Poppy, suddenly seeing how everything fit together. In her mind’s eye she had been going through all of Daniel’s photographs: there was Selena and Irina and Felix and Adam at the bar and – yes, Vasili Safin. Rollo had remarked that he hadn’t noticed him when the police were interviewing everyone. Neither had Poppy. He must have snuck out after the shots had been fired. But it could not have been him who removed the gun. The only person it could possibly be was… “Empress Maria Federovna,” said Poppy out loud.